Logan Opens Big with $33.1 Million Friday Box Office

9 months ago

With box office records becoming harder and harder to break each year, the categories are getting narrower and narrower. While it hasn’t busted through the ranks in a substantial manner, this weekend’s Logan is tracking to make at least one big mark in the box office history books. If it continues as is through Sunday, it will be the highest grossing R-rated movie ever in the month of March.

As it stands, the movie is looking to surpass the current holder of that record. After grossing $9.5 million in Thursday night previews, the final Wolverine movie for Hugh Jackman grossed a pretty impressive $33.1 million in total on Friday (which includes the grosses from the previews). The movie is now on track to blast past Zack Snyder’s 300 as the biggest R-Rated March opening weekend in history. That highly-stylized action adventure earned $70 million back in March 2007.

Logan opened in 4,071 domestic theaters this weekend, and Fox has the movie at a cool $60M when all is said and done come Monday. But they are being modest, and the sequel is actually tracking a lot higher according to Box Office Mojo. Also in theaters this weekend is the horror holdover Get Out, which won the weekend last week, the Groundhog Day-esque thriller Before I Fall and the faith-based movie The Shack.

For some comparison, here’s how some other X-Men films stack up. Last year’s Deadpool still sits on top with a $47.3 million opening day, followed by a $132.4 million opening weekend. X-Men 3: The Last Stand is next in line, with a $45.1 million Friday, followed by a $102.7 million weekend. 2014’s X-Men Days of Future Past brought in $35.5 million on its first Friday, with a $90.8 million weekend. The first Logan solo movie actually fared better on its opening day than this latest adventure. X-Men Origins: Wolverine pulled in $34.3 million followed by an $85.1 million weekend. The movie was leaked early, which caused the box office to be down slightly, though it isn’t known how much it was affected. Poor word of mouth and critical reception saw the movie drop substantially in the days following its release.

X2: X-Men United brought in $31.2 million on its first Friday for a weekend tally of $85.8 million. And last year’s X-Men: Apocalypse only brought in $26.3 million on its opening Friday for a weekend pull of $65.8 million. The worst contender, though some think its one of the better entries in the whole franchise, was 2013’s The Wolverine, which only earned $20.7 million on its first Friday for a total first weekend gross of $53.1 million.

While it was one of the lowest earners in the franchise, The Wolverine was well received by fans and critics alike. And director of that movie, James Mangold, returned to helm Logan. The new sequel currently has a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And it looks like it could end the weekend with $74 million. Possibly more. That will make it the best opening of 2017 thus fare. But that record probably won’t hold long with Beauty and the Beast coming next weekend.